When electrical energy is transmitted to moving consumers, particularly in systems with consumers guided along a predetermined route such as telpher systems or driverless transport systems in assembly plants or warehouses with shelving, it is known for the complete route to be divided at least electrically into individual route sections. As a rule, the individual route sections are each supplied with electrical energy through their own supply modules. To increase the safety of unoccupied route sections and reduce the power requirement of known systems, usually only those route sections on which moving consumers are in operation are supplied with electrical energy.
Thus, DE 602 90 141 T2 discloses an automatic transport and personal guidance system and the control of transport modules in such a system with a track as guide device for the transport modules. In addition, this system comprises an electrical supply system with a distribution device for electrical supply for different successive supply circuits. The supply system controls the movement of the transport modules by making different supply circuits electrically live or dead. Here, when a transport module is present in a supply circuit, this prevents one or more circuits arranged directly behind the circuit being used from being made live in order to maintain a safety gap between the different transport modules travelling separately from one another on the track. This ensures automatic movement of the vehicles when the transport modules are supplied with electrical energy through the supply circuits. If the transport modules are not supplied with electrical energy by the supply circuits, a braking device is automatically tripped in the transport modules in these supply circuits.
DE 601 25 579 T2 discloses a contactless current supply device in which a primary induction line uses high-frequency current to transmit electrical energy without contact to a secondary load, the secondary load being a moving car which is assigned to a robot area. In order to be able to repair or service electrical equipment in the moving car, the corresponding section of the movement track can be switched off so that the car is not supplied with electrical voltage.
WO 93/23909 also describes a roadway for inductively supplying an automatic guided vehicle with a route which is divided into individual segments and is only supplied with energy when a vehicle is in this segment.
WO 2007/006400 A2 discloses a primary conductor divided in multiple sections which are not separated electrically from one another, whereby respective route controllers can be assigned to each section allowing each route section to be feed forward controlled, feed back controlled or both together. The different route sections do not contain respective current sources for impressing a constant current, but there is only one single supply circuit for supplying alternating current to the primary conductor, whereby the route controllers are enabled for data transmission with the supply circuit. The route controllers can transmit the number of consumers to be supplied in the respective route section and further information, for example the power required by the consumers and the capacity of energy contained in their energy buffers, to the supply circuit. On that basis the supply circuit is enabled to calculate the required power and the pulse with modulation ratio and/or the characteristic of the amplitude value of the current of the complete primary conductor and to impress this value correspondingly. Further, sinusoidal current blocks are impressed during an on-period. During an off-period the current in the primary conductor is switched off, whereby during that time period an energy buffer of the consumer supplies the necessary voltage. A power supply to different route sections based on the required power thereof is not possible.
DE 10 2007 026 896 A1 discloses a method for power-adaptive control of a generated transmission conductor current, which is impressed in a transmission route of an arrangement for inductive transmission of electrical power to at least two movable consumers. A transmission conductor shown therein is not divided into route sections with respective assigned current source for impressing a constant current into each respective section. Hence a power supply of different route sections dependent on the required power is not possible.
In installations in which a plurality of moving consumers travel over the different route sections at different times there is a desire to reduce the power requirement in a simple manner. Often the moving consumers carry out additional activities, for example turning, lifting or swivelling operations to raise loads or grip components. This results in a wide variety of requirements of the power required at the consumers. For example, a travelling consumer or vehicle only requires electrical power for its car control and its propulsion drive, whereas more electrical power is required for an additional turning movement. However, often such vehicles are also stationary in a waiting (standby) position, i.e. in this case it is only necessary to supply the car control with electrical power. Even when there are only stationary vehicles with a relatively low power requirement in a route section, in the known installations the maximum power requirement is maintained and a route section is only switched to a state in which it is free of current and voltage in the complete absence of vehicles. As installations of this kind are often operated with a constant current supply, the result is a constant high current in the current and voltage-carrying supply elements of the route sections, leading to continuous high power losses.
In the known installations if the power supply were also switched off in route sections in which all the vehicles are in a waiting (standby) position, the car controls of the vehicles in this route section would initially have to be started up when this route section is restarted, preventing rapid or immediate restarting of the vehicles. To avoid this, the vehicles could be equipped with a vehicle battery which guarantees the power required to maintain the operation of the car control even when the route section is switched off. However, if a vehicle is stationary for an extended period, the vehicle battery is discharged so that restarting is only possible with the time consuming start-up of the car control. To guarantee operation with optimum reliability and speed, it is then necessary either to provide a battery with a greater capacity or to supply the route section continuously with the full electric power as known.